I would imagine the exam will not need you to deploy the appliance but rather be focused on configuration. I will show the deployment steps anyway in case you need to add it to you lab. The appliance is a .ovf file but you must download the .zip file and extract it. Once extracted import it into vCenter, you must use the Web Client to import it for it to power up successfully.

Give the appliance a name, select a location and configuration.

Select your compute resource and storage.

Set the network the appliance will be attached to, additional NICs can be added once the appliance is deployed. I set a manual address here along with NTP settings and passwords for the appliance. At this point I also add a DNS entry for the appliance.

Confirm the installation.

Once complete boot up the appliance and continue the installation from the following web page.

>https://fqdn-of-appliance:5480

The first thing to do would be to register the appliance with vCenter using the LookupService address. Depending on your environment this will be your vCenter (embedded mode) or your PSC (external mode) for me I need to use PSC and I also need to point directly to the LookupService address.

>https://lab-psc.vjenner.com:7444/lookupservice/sdk

Now I had issues here due to certificates, I have replaced my VMCA with internal PKI certificates and there is a known issue with vSphere 6.0 where the LookupService certificate would need to be manually changed once the VMCA certificates have been replaced. This also applies to NSX Manager which I have covered in another post in detail here. Bizarrely I am running 6.0 Update 2 which this issue has been resolved, it was upgraded though to Update 2 so maybe its a hang over from that. Important note – if you are running in external mode like I am this procedure need to be run on BOTH the PSC and vCenter. Follow the VMware KB here or my previous post on NSX Manager. The error I received was the following

Unable to obtain SSL certificate: The vCenter Server <hostname> is not correctly registered in LookupServer

Once the procedure is complete the registration will complete fine.

Reload the Web Client and the plug in will appear.

Open this and the vCenter will load with an OK for vSphere replication. At this point I also deploy the appliance to my second vCenter, mine are in enhanced linked mode so I can do it through the plug in.

Follow the same setup as above, the ovf deployment and LookupService registration. For my setup im using the same PSC in the same SSO domain. Once deployed both vCenters display OK.

Select a vCenter and choose Manage, this brings up the Web Client options.

From here I can select Target Site and choose if its a remote vCenter or a local one, by local it means within the same SSO domain.

VMKernel interfaces can be used to isolate replication traffic. For my lab I have just edited an existing VMKernel interface but in production you may want to look to have a dedicated one.

For local site select – vSphere Replication Traffic for the service.

For a remote site select – vSphere Replication NFC Traffic for the service.

The last objective for this section relates to enabling compression on jobs, this is selected when the job is created as one of the options, this will be covered later but for now I will show the screen shot.

Configure and manage vSphere Replication of virtual machines

Once the plug in has loaded replication can be enabled on a VM by simply selecting the VM – All vSphere Replication Actions – Configure Replication

Select to weather replicate to another vCenter or to a cloud provider.

Select the target site previously created.

Select the replication server.

Select the target storage where the replicated VM will reside and select any storage policies if required.

Choose to select compression or not.

See the following considerations regarding compression taken from VMware documentation.

Choose the RPO and choose weather to enable Point in Time Instances

.

Review and finish.

Replication will start once the VM is powered up, an initial sync will be performed. This can also be started directly Web Client – vSphere Replication – Target vCenter – Monitor – vSphere Replication – Incoming Replication – Right Click – Sync Now.

Wait for the initial sync to finish.

Analyze and resolve vSphere Replication issues

This section first mentions storage, there maybe a situation on the exam where the target storage has filled up or it needs changing for some reason. This can be done by editing the job Web Client – vSphere Replication – Target vCenter – Monitor – vSphere Replication – Incoming Replication – Right Click – Reconfigure.